Barcelona breaks the contract with I3Ventures after the scandal over the use of defamatory accounts

The president of FC Barcelona, ​​Josep Maria Bartomeu, announced at noon on Tuesday that the club has broken the contractual relationship that united them to the company I3Ventures, expert in digital marketing, and to which they have paid since 2017, when they started work together, an amount close to one million euros, according to Ser Catalunya revealed on Monday. The reaction of the Barça club happens just a day after it was known that this company managed a series of accounts in social networks dedicated not only to monitor the image of the club and the president, but also to erode the image of third parties with the aim of improve the public profile of Bartomeu himself and his management team, an extreme that the club says ignore.

MORE INFORMATION

• Barcelona has hired a company that defames third parties to improve the image of Bartomeu

• Valverde is not to blame; Also, neither

Barça “has never hired a service to attack any player or former player, any president or former president, politician, businessman or organization. We have not discredited people or institutions and will persecute all who accuse us of it. We will defend ourselves where it touches and successfully, ”said Bartomeu.

The news jumped in the middle of the award ceremony of the Vázquez Montalbán Prize, awarded this year to former soccer player and writer Jorge Valdano. Bartomeu's announcement was preceded by the publication of two reports that evidenced Barcelona's relationship with I3Ventures and how it addressed its mission of bleaching Bartomeu's image, damaging third parties, whether they were soccer players, politicians or businessmen, and was expressly dedicated to harming Víctor Font, futurist to the presidency of Barcelona.

You can check the I3Ventures 36 page report here

A report in possession of the Being on a series of Facebook accounts, prepared by Nicestream, a company directly linked to I3Ventures - both are under the direction of the same sole administrator, Carlos Ibáñez, and share a corporate headquarters - details the impact of the They are dedicated to influencing public opinion to sweeten the image of President Josep Maria Bartomeu and his management team at the head of FC Barcelona. It also reports the volume of followers of these six Facebook accounts and how users interact. In addition, it analyzes the impact of a series of news or debates around Barcelona - for example, the renewal of its star Leo Messi or the continuity of the already technical Ernesto Valverde - and how these affect the figure of Bartomeu.

The aforementioned dossier, of 36 pages, corroborates the relationship between I3Ventures and FC Barcelona, ​​which on Monday acknowledged having hired “its social media monitoring services to be aware of the positive and negative messages of which the sports entity It is an object ”. This was stated by the statement issued by the Barca club, the same in which the entity denied being related to any social media account “whose purpose is to spread negative messages or disparagement in relation to any person, entity or organization that has or has had a relationship with the club. ”

However, the report, published by the Ser network and unveiled exclusively on Monday night on the radio program El larguero , specifies how they work with each of those six Facebook pages, namely: More than a club , the only dedicated to offer benevolent content to favor the image of Barça and its current board of directors; and five more aggressive ones: Alter Sports , Sport Leaks , Justice and dialogue in sports , Respect and sport , and Ja ume, a horror film , focused exclusively on shaking public opinion around the figure of businessman Jaume Roures . All these accounts are from Facebook, have a very similar aesthetic and were created between January 2014 and September 2015.

Incomodar Víctor Font

This is the strategic plan to erode the image of Víctor Font

A second report, of which the Being had also spoken on Monday and which has been published on Tuesday, addresses how to erode the image of Víctor Font, a Catalan businessman who, months ago, ran for the presidency of Barcelona. He is the main opponent of Josep Maria Bartomeu and I3Ventures developed a strategic plan to damage Font's figure and his suitability as presidential.

The document in question speaks of a "campaign to bother Font", and it is reported that they will work with their accounts to formulate questions and criticisms of Font's speech to "add support against the candidate." It was a strategy that was to be developed in the days before the presentation in society of the entrepreneur, which was held in January last year at the AXA Auditorium in Barcelona before a crowd in which, curiously, there were representatives of the board of directors of Bartomeu . In the text, questions for Font are cited, such as: Does the support of a candidate have been supported or is it a bluff? What is your relationship with Xavi or Guardiola?

People who steal photographs and create fake profiles per fer joc brut to les xarxes. I know that the director but did not face enough proves. Esperem can report-los aviat pic.twitter.com/5m0ajEbymg

Sources from the Sí al Futur platform, led by Víctor Font, showed their confusion at the volume of information. Although it does not seem that the future candidate for the presidency the news will catch him very much. “In October 2019, Victor already made a tweet warning that something was happening because he was attacked with a coordination of messages through social networks, with clear schedules and false profiles. We were with the fly behind the ear, but we couldn't imagine this dimension, ”they explain in their surroundings.

And they add the same sources, referring to the almost million euros invested in these practices of doubtful legitimacy: “We could not imagine such a situation. If true, the club would have spent money from members for practices outside of logic. To think that something like this could happen would be a delirium. ”

Font and his team do not want to anticipate events, but advocate holding early elections if the information is confirmed. “We support emotional and social stability, also institutional. Asking for resignations and motions for any reason does not seem right. But if this information is confirmed, it is not anything and of course there would be no other solution than to advance the elections. We are prepared; We have been working on this candidacy for seven years. ”

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